Modification of relevant polymeric materials for medical applications and devices

Abstract

The present review compiles different biomedical relevant polymers that have been modified to enhance their properties, giving hydrophilicity to their surfaces, antifouling properties to avoid bacterial adhesion, biocompatibility, incorporation of drug delivery systems and the improving of their mechanical properties to use them in the manufacturing of medical devices as prosthesis or implants, or other medical applications as wound dressers or scaffolds to cell culture. Other content of this work is a general description of the different techniques to modify and graft molecules, biomolecules and other polymers onto polymeric matrices in order to obtain high-performance biomaterials and medical devices.